Will *any* mobile OS emerge dominant by 2015?

This camcorder is a device that doesn't run Windows released in 2003. Is this one of the 5%?

Nope. He said platforms. That's the game: general-purpose devices that run computing platforms. The only survivors in Microsoft's era of Windows were a motley band: Macs and PCs running Linux. Less than 5%, honestly. Then PDAs, but those mobile platforms fizzled out, and Microsoft eventually bested Palm OS with the PocketPC. Ironically, that (very) modest success is what led to their grievous downfall.

OC I think you should read that post again, I think somehow you think that with "#2" he means ranking number 2. He doesn't, instead he refers to his own bullets. With bullet #1 he compares galaxy (S3?) with the iP5, but with bullet #2 he is comparing iP4s versus iP5. So #2 really is independent of the sales of the S3.

And yeah, it does seem the iP5 sales are a tad slower than expected, but this is still a bit mysterious. I do know that delivery of the iP5 is a LOT faster than the iP4s which coud take weeks (we are shackled to a non-prefered supplier).

If that is the correct interpretation then the issue is whether 23.9m iPhone 5 in a quarter is good or bad.

That still doesn't make his point that the S3 came close to outselling the two iPhones combined since the two combined in Q3 was still 33% higher than the S3.

I don't know why he's talking about Q3 since there was an 'Osborne effect' in play where everyone was waiting for the Q4 release. Average the two and you get shy of 37m iPhones each quarter, which dwarfs the S3 as well.

he read it correctly.

You are comparing S3 against BOTH iPhones. If you do that then you have to count ALL Galaxies (note, note2, S, S2, mini). And guess what--it outsold all iPhones.

Oh right, those. IME my 5—despite being thinner and lighter—feels less fragile than the 4 (which shattered almost almost immediately after dropping it onto a slate floor, after which I was much more careful).... but EMMV, I 'spose.

It's why I wish we just put Otterboxes on the phones. But the managers don't swallow that kinda shit.

I have an otterbox on my Sammy after I wrecked my last phone after two months when it dropped from my chest pocket on a concrete parking lot. That was an interesting chat with my boss... "Uhmmm you know that I always rant about our staff wrecking phones? I have some bad news..."

Immediately ordered an Otterbox... I really don't like to have that chat again.

Another solution would be just to insure the bloody things... but the MT thinks that costs too much. They are right... we are approx 1000$ cheaper without insuring it... except they forget all the extra paper work and downtime due to order delays. *I just hate business Smartphones*

Seems to me a sensible policy would be a recommendation to use a case, but if you don't, then pony up and share the cost of repair if you break it. Nothing like that to help one take care of something better.

Seems to me a sensible policy would be a recommendation to use a case, but if you don't, then pony up and share the cost of repair if you break it. Nothing like that to help one take care of something better.

Yeah, wouldn't that be fair. But this is a European School, which operates under a "non-profit" policy. You must kill a few pupils before we fire you. Dropping a phone is just a shrug. What reaaaaalllly helps is that we seem to have a knack to misplace files in the personel dossiers, so if you are a bad apple you just stall (sick leave!) until you have a new manager. Suck up a bit and then go pig out again.

Some exaggeration and frustration in that part (there are definitely good things in having non profit education) and the absolute majority works hard. But in essence it's sad but true. You have to really screw up to be slapped on the wrist for these things.

Seems to me a sensible policy would be a recommendation to use a case, but if you don't, then pony up and share the cost of repair if you break it. Nothing like that to help one take care of something better.

Yeah, wouldn't that be fair. But this is a European School, which operates under a "non-profit" policy. You must kill a few pupils before we fire you. Dropping a phone is just a shrug. What reaaaaalllly helps is that we seem to have a knack to misplace files in the personel dossiers, so if you are a bad apple you just stall (sick leave!) until you have a new manager. Suck up a bit and then go pig out again.

Some exaggeration and frustration in that part (there are definitely good things in having non profit education) and the absolute majority works hard. But in essence it's sad but true. You have to really screw up to be slapped on the wrist for these things.

Just encountered two guys working in education / with problematic children 3 weeks ago. Both were into really young teens as we went deeper into the night. Freaked the hell out of me. I know, anecdotal, but still. Nice to know they basically have a free playing ground.

PS sorry for misinterpreting your reply regarding customer satisfaction, but reading back apparently I wasnt the only one

#1 is false since the S3 couldn't outsell either iPhone 5 or 4/4S. #2 is incorrect as well.

The concern over sales mix was addressed in the investor call:

Cook wrote:

Apple doesn't break out sales of each iPhone model, but Cook said the mix between iPhone 5 sales and older models was similar to the mix of iPhone 4S and its prior models a year ago. He noted that the average selling price for the iPhone business was roughly equal.

#1 is false since the S3 couldn't outsell either iPhone 5 or 4/4S. #2 is incorrect as well.

The concern over sales mix was addressed in the investor call:

Cook wrote:

Apple doesn't break out sales of each iPhone model, but Cook said the mix between iPhone 5 sales and older models was similar to the mix of iPhone 4S and its prior models a year ago. He noted that the average selling price for the iPhone business was roughly equal.

So if it wasn't a problem last year, why is it this year?

It is amazing how far you will burying your head in the sand. Believe whatever you want. Ignore the shifts all you want.

#1 is false since the S3 couldn't outsell either iPhone 5 or 4/4S. #2 is incorrect as well.

The concern over sales mix was addressed in the investor call:

Cook wrote:

Apple doesn't break out sales of each iPhone model, but Cook said the mix between iPhone 5 sales and older models was similar to the mix of iPhone 4S and its prior models a year ago. He noted that the average selling price for the iPhone business was roughly equal.

So if it wasn't a problem last year, why is it this year?

It is amazing how far you will burying your head in the sand. Believe whatever you want. Ignore the shifts all you want.

Nope--I am sure they were "roughly equal". Too bad there is a nice fat margin to "roughly". Here is the simply fact, it is entirely likely that the iPhone 5 sold less units in Q4 2012 than the 4S did in 2011.

Nope--I am sure they were "roughly equal". Too bad there is a nice fat margin to "roughly". Here is the simply fact, it is entirely likely that the iPhone 5 sold less units in Q4 2012 than the 4S did in 2011.

You're trying to convince me that 27m, or 57% iPhone 5, is roughly equivalent to the reported 89% 4S mix from 2011?

57% 5 and 43% 4S would leave us with a $607 ASP for Q4Y12.89% 4S and 11% 4 gives us an ASP of $639 for Q4Y11.

Yet the reportedASP for this last quarter was $641... and for the same quarter last year was $646.

That doesn't make any sense. An ASP of $641 suggests either more 32gb iPhone 5s were sold to offset the lower amount of iPhone 5 (possible, but kind of hard to believe), or that 57% estimate is wrong.

Nope--I am sure they were "roughly equal". Too bad there is a nice fat margin to "roughly". Here is the simply fact, it is entirely likely that the iPhone 5 sold less units in Q4 2012 than the 4S did in 2011.

You're trying to convince me that 27m, or 57% iPhone 5, is roughly equivalent to the reported 89% 4S mix from 2011?

57% 5 and 43% 4S would leave us with a $607 ASP for Q4Y12.89% 4S and 11% 4 gives us an ASP of $639 for Q4Y11.

Yet the reportedASP for this last quarter was $641... and for the same quarter last year was $646.

That doesn't make any sense. An ASP of $641 suggests either more 32gb iPhone 5s were sold to offset the lower amount of iPhone 5 (possible, but kind of hard to believe), or that 57% estimate is wrong.

So you have two reports, last year 89% this year 57% and you say I am wrong even though they agree with me.

I'm saying the 89% estimate from last year matches the expectation that they sold over 80% iPhone 5s. That or you have more people buying 32gb iPhone 5 to satisfy the 57% iPhone 5 mix. In other words, you have something like 72% of iPhone 5 sales being the 32gb model.

Remember that Tegra 4 is not a big.LITTLE chip, so there should be chips that are as fast and more efficient like the Exynos 5 Octa.

Yeah but they didn't let them make power measurements while its running those benchmarks (just decoding video with most of the cores likely powered down), so my guess is that it'll be about as power efficient as every other Tegra processor.

Even better Anand has an article up. The Octane and Kraken scores are really good, unless the Snapdragon 800 is extremely fast the Tegra 4 should hold the performance lead until Intel delivers quad core Silvermont chips.

Samsung recently disclosed details about its Cortex A15 implementation compared to the Cortex A7, a similarly performing but more power efficient alternative to the A9. In its ISSCC paper on the topic Samsung noted that the Cortex A15 offered up to 3x the performance of the Cortex A7, at 4x the area and 6x the power consumption. It’s a tremendous performance advantage for sure, but it comes at a great cost to area and power consumption. The area side isn’t as important as NVIDIA has to eat that cost, but power consumption is a valid concern.

So why is Nvidia using an A15 as the low power core? Does ARM charge a fortune to license big.little or something? Dumping the clock speed stats from my Nexus, the processor spends most of its screen on time with the clockspeed at less then 1/4 of max. If its really much more efficient to run an A7, the battery savings should be huge.

@OC I'm not sure to follow your math.What ASP for the 4S only and for the 4 only are you using for Q4Y12?

Using the dollar prices of the 4 and 4S (but VAT-less prices around the world vary, and that also would then be considering that's what Apple get from subsidzed iPhones sold through carriers), and the 47.8M total iPhone sold that quarter with strategyanalytics numbers,you should get an ASP of iPhone 5 only at $689 to obtain a global ASP at $641 (and then suggesting the majority of iPhone 5 sold were the 16GB model).

So why is Nvidia using an A15 as the low power core? Does ARM charge a fortune to license big.little or something? Dumping the clock speed stats from my Nexus, the processor spends most of its screen on time with the clockspeed at less then 1/4 of max. If its really much more efficient to run an A7, the battery savings should be huge.

I think it's likely to be more technical than financial. As I understand it this is how handling the high and low power CPUs works.

On the Tegra 3, and probably the Tegra 4, the OS is unaware that there are 5 cores. Nvidia has a simple self-contained driver that manages that switching between the high and low power core 1, and the OS is unaware of what that driver does, although I suppose the OS might see and set various parameters that the driver then fudges into switching to a particular core.

On big.LITTLE platforms the OS is fully aware that there are 2 and 2, or 4 and 4, cores, and the OS has to make decisions about which cores to power up, what frequencies to run them at, whether to switch cores or full clusters, or even run with all cores from both clusters active. The OS has to be extensively modified and tuned for this heterogeneous hardware.

So Nvidia's approach is simple and quick to adopt, but less capable of full exploiting the available hardware. Of course Nvidia could have gone down the same path with the A5 and A7 as the low power core, but it's probably simpler for them and maybe cheaper to stick to a single core design.

@OC I'm not sure to follow your math.What ASP for the 4S only and for the 4 only are you using for Q4Y12?

Using the dollar prices of the 4 and 4S (but VAT-less prices around the world vary, and that also would then be considering that's what Apple get from subsidzed iPhones sold through carriers), and the 47.8M total iPhone sold that quarter with strategyanalytics numbers,you should get an ASP of iPhone 5 only at $689 to obtain a global ASP at $641 (and then suggesting the majority of iPhone 5 sold were the 16GB model).

How does that work when the base iPhone 5 is $650 and the 32gb iPhone 5 is $750?

Even then with 57% iPhone 5, 37% iPhone 4S, and 8% iPhone 4 at $689, $550, and $450 respectively, I only get an ASP of $632. The iPhone 5 would need to sell at ASP of $702 to hit an ASP of $639 across the board.

An ASP of $701 for the iPhone 5 alone requires 52% of iPhone 5 be sold at $750.

0.52*750+0.48*650=702. That means the majority of iPhone 5 would be 32gb, not 16gb as you suggested.

So why is Nvidia using an A15 as the low power core? Does ARM charge a fortune to license big.little or something? Dumping the clock speed stats from my Nexus, the processor spends most of its screen on time with the clockspeed at less then 1/4 of max. If its really much more efficient to run an A7, the battery savings should be huge.

I think it's likely to be more technical than financial. As I understand it this is how handling the high and low power CPUs works.

On the Tegra 3, and probably the Tegra 4, the OS is unaware that there are 5 cores. Nvidia has a simple self-contained driver that manages that switching between the high and low power core 1, and the OS is unaware of what that driver does, although I suppose the OS might see and set various parameters that the driver then fudges into switching to a particular core.

On big.LITTLE platforms the OS is fully aware that there are 2 and 2, or 4 and 4, cores, and the OS has to make decisions about which cores to power up, what frequencies to run them at, whether to switch cores or full clusters, or even run with all cores from both clusters active. The OS has to be extensively modified and tuned for this heterogeneous hardware.

No, the OS doesn't see the difference between the big and little cores (they're both identical ISA versions and are designed to be essentially identical in terms of software). And even without big.little you still have to manually control the clock speed, voltage, etc. The linux kernel handles all of this though, which is why you flash new kernels (but not new ROMs) to change power management strategies on Android.

ev9_tarantula wrote:

So Nvidia's approach is simple and quick to adopt, but less capable of full exploiting the available hardware. Of course Nvidia could have gone down the same path with the A5 and A7 as the low power core, but it's probably simpler for them and maybe cheaper to stick to a single core design.

But its not really any more simple, and using a smaller, cheaper A7 would have cut costs, which makes the low power A15 core even stranger.

No, the OS doesn't see the difference between the big and little cores (they're both identical ISA versions and are designed to be essentially identical in terms of software).

No, all cores are visible to the OS, and they have the same ISA, but the OS needs to know which are which for the power management and scheduling. They OS does not treat them as equal.

Samsung said that for Linux on the Exynos 5 Octa, core migration uses a modified DVFS driver, the all-core asymmetric multiprocessing mode uses a modified scheduler. Linux is totally aware that A7s are LITTLE and A15s big. Linaro and ARM have done a lot of work on this as well.

redleader wrote:

But its not really any more simple, and using a smaller, cheaper A7 would have cut costs, which makes the low power A15 core even stranger.

Nvidia didn't pair the A9s with an A5 either, so it's not as though they haven't done this before. They obviously didn't think it worth the effort.

I'm saying the 89% estimate from last year matches the expectation that they sold over 80% iPhone 5s. That or you have more people buying 32gb iPhone 5 to satisfy the 57% iPhone 5 mix. In other words, you have something like 72% of iPhone 5 sales being the 32gb model.

OR...they are buying the higher gig iPhone 4. Which I can't find on their website. Do they really stop selling anything other than 16GB on the older models? OMG that just sounds like a horrible consumer unfriendly decision.

I'm saying the 89% estimate from last year matches the expectation that they sold over 80% iPhone 5s. That or you have more people buying 32gb iPhone 5 to satisfy the 57% iPhone 5 mix. In other words, you have something like 72% of iPhone 5 sales being the 32gb model.

OR...they are buying the higher gig iPhone 4. Which I can't find on their website. Do they really stop selling anything other than 16GB on the older models? OMG that just sounds like a horrible consumer unfriendly decision.

No, the OS doesn't see the difference between the big and little cores (they're both identical ISA versions and are designed to be essentially identical in terms of software).

No, all cores are visible to the OS, and they have the same ISA, but the OS needs to know which are which for the power management and scheduling. They OS does not treat them as equal.

And you're claiming that it doesn't have to on the Tegra series? Obviously the OS needs to know which core is the more efficient one so that it can preferentially schedule for that core when ramping down power consumption, but I fail to see how what Nvidia does simplifies the software. The same basic decisions need to be made in either case, and using the same core at a lower clockspeed or a software identical one with fewer execution and decode resources doesn't really change that.

ev9_tarantula wrote:

Nvidia didn't pair the A9s with an A5 either, so it's not as though they haven't done this before. They obviously didn't think it worth the effort.

Is that even possible with the A9 and A5 without a large amount of engineering work? Big.little uses a coherent cache between the two processors to avoid the high cost of flushing cachelines on switch. I don't think that would be possible without redesigning how memory and coherency are handled on the A9/A5. Regardless, given that the Tegra 3 was mediocre at best from a power efficiency standpoint, it suggests that whatever Nvidia is doing could be improved.

Not me, Nvidia. They claimed that it is "OS transparent" and "the OS and applications are not aware of this core". They use the DVFS and hardware monitors to trigger switching via a driver, the DVFS and scheduler don't know there are 5 cores or two types. They never run the high power and low power core 1 at the same time, there's a 2 ms switch between the modes, and some hysteresis to stop it thrashing back and forth.

I'm saying the 89% estimate from last year matches the expectation that they sold over 80% iPhone 5s. That or you have more people buying 32gb iPhone 5 to satisfy the 57% iPhone 5 mix. In other words, you have something like 72% of iPhone 5 sales being the 32gb model.

OR...they are buying the higher gig iPhone 4. Which I can't find on their website. Do they really stop selling anything other than 16GB on the older models? OMG that just sounds like a horrible consumer unfriendly decision.

Not me, Nvidia. They claimed that it is "OS transparent" and "the OS and applications are not aware of this core".

Looking at their whitepapers, I think they actually claim that switching is transparent to the OS, not that efficient scheduling can somehow happen without the OS understanding what its doing. That would probably be impossible. They do mention changes to the OS to enable efficient scheduling.

I think the actual reason Nvidia used it on the Tegra 3 is that they had to given the limitations of the A9. Its not clear to me why they chose to continue to use it on the Tegra 4.

ev9_tarantula wrote:

They use the DVFS and hardware monitors to trigger switching via a driver, the DVFS and scheduler don't know there are 5 cores or two types. They never run the high power and low power core 1 at the same time, there's a 2 ms switch between the modes, and some hysteresis to stop it thrashing back and forth.

Looking at the big.little vs. 4+1 implementations in more detail, it seems that 4.1 is functionally almost identical to big.little in "switcher" mode. In this mode each big.little pair appears as a single processor that switches between big and little by piggybacking on the cache coherency hardware to swap state whereas something similar happens in 4+1 except that since there is no suitable coherency hardware available state swapping happens through physical sharing of the L2 cache hardware. Functionally I think its the exact same idea except that 4+1 is constrained to CPU cores that use the same cache interface whereas big.little can in theory use different cores so long as they have the right coherency hardware.

In terms of the optimization you mention, as far as I can tell, its largely focused on figuring out what to do when multiple big.little cores are in play (and so the system can contain a mix of A7s and A15s). This is indeed more complex to schedule for, but its also entirely optional. You could simply implement the 4+1 situation just by only having one core "switch".

Of interest: Samsung Sparks Anxiety at Google (WSJ). (You may have to google the article title in order to skirt the WSJ paywall. I can't quite figure out when the paywall is up or down for a given article. It often seems moody.)

A tension worth watching, as the inequality between what Google provides Samsung, and what Samsung reaps from it, grows wider and wider, and Samsung's power multiplies.

Amongst many other things, today I went to the Firefox stand at [Mobile World Congress]. It was very full of excited people talking about their new venture with some of the leading mobile operators to launch a new phone OS, aimed at the tier just below 'real' smartphones. There was much talk of openness and other ideologically correct things, and none at all about any consumer benefits.

[...]

50 yards away there is a half-empty stand from Haier, a second-tier Chinese OEM. Their W619 is a 2G android smartphone running Android 4, with 2 SIM slots, a 3.5" screen and an MTK chipset. It is very solid and the UI is perfectly fluid. The wholesale price is $50: 3G versions are $75. There are dozens of other companies at MWC selling similar products, for anyone who bothers to look.

I generally have little faith in industry-wide initiatives in mobile: I have none at all in this one.

Said it when it was announced, but I still don't understand what the point of this endeavor is besides telecoms wanting to break the Android/iOS duopoly, and Mozilla trying desperately to find revelance in a computing paradigm that has no need for them. Seems to be a complete waste of time.

Amongst many other things, today I went to the Firefox stand at MWC. It was very full of excited people talking about their new venture with some of the leading mobile operators to launch a new phone OS, aimed at the tier just below 'real' smartphones. There was much talk of openness and other ideologically correct things, and none at all about any consumer benefits.

[...]

50 yards away there is a half-empty stand from Haier, a second-tier Chinese OEM. Their W619 is a 2G android smartphone running Android 4, with 2 SIM slots, a 3.5" screen and an MTK chipset. It is very solid and the UI is perfectly fluid. The wholesale price is $50: 3G versions are $75. There are dozens of other companies at MWC selling similar products, for anyone who bothers to look.

I generally have little faith in industry-wide initiatives in mobile: I have none at all in this one.

Said it when it was announced, but I still don't understand what the point of this endeavor is besides telecoms wanting to break the Android/iOS duopoly, and Mozilla trying desperately to find revelance in a computing paradigm that has no need for them. Seems to be a complete waste of time.

The Register points out we've seen these sorts of carrier sponsored Linux initatives before, they say that Firefox OS was paid for by Telefonica.

That's a great bit of info tarantula, thanks for it. Would certainly explain the this:

Quote:

"This internet is dominated by a small number of players that restrict customers' choice," said [Telefonica CEO Cesar] Alierta. "We support open ecosystems to break monopolies and give greater choice and flexibility to consumers. Firefox represents a way to bring balance back to the sector."

It's double speak isn't it? It means almost the exact opposite of what he said.

"We support open ecosystems [1] to break monopolies [2] and give greater choice [3] and flexibility [4] to consumers. Firefox represents a way to bring balance back [5] to the sector."

1. "Open ecosystems" that the carriers control or sponsor.2. Monopolies = Apple, Google and Microsoft; the companies actually doing cool shit and competing.3. Greater choice means a carrier friendly OS, not one from those "monopolies".4. Flexibility, fewer native apps and services, please don't use OTT services.5. Put phones back in the control of carriers, not those companies who want us to become a dumb pipe.